Kid Cudi Samples The Smashing Pumpkins On New Song “The Rage”

Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images

Kid Cudi Samples The Smashing Pumpkins On New Song “The Rage”

Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images

It’s been 20 years, and the world needed a new version of “Come With Me.” You remember “Come With Me,” right? That was the song where Puff Daddy teamed up with Jimmy Page to rap over the operatic riff-rock churn of Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir.” The idea was that it could bring together Puffy and Zeppelin’s respective fanbases. The reality was that it made pretty much nobody happy. The song came from the soundtrack of the 1998 Godzilla, the sad attempt at an American remake where the iconic monster was reimagined as pretty much just a big iguana. Nobody likes “Come With Me,” but everyone remembers it. And today, we may have gotten the 2018 version.

Today sees the opening of Rampage, the new movie based on the old arcade game where a trio of monsters methodically wrecks a series of American cities while the Rock tries to find ways to stop them. It has a solid 54% on Rotten Tomatoes, and there is a non-zero chance that I will pay money to go see it this weekend. Rampage does not have one of those every-genre-colliding soundtrack albums that’s once again become popular in recent years. But it does have a single soundtrack song that does all the genre-colliding that the movie could possibly need.

“The Rage,” presumably Rampage’s end-credits song, comes from Kid Cudi, a rap enigma who’s an old hand at cycling in stoner-rock influences (and who still has enough clout to get Kanye West to show up for surprise appearances). And while Kid Cudi is no slouch at coming up with new choruses, this one outsources its hook. That chorus comes from the Smashing Pumpkins “Bullet With Butterfly Wings,” which is both one of that band’s most iconic songs and also, unquestionably, its silliest. Does the combination work? I’ll leave it up to you to decide. (Spoiler: No. No, it does not.) If you’re signed into Apple Music, you can hear it below.

Rampage is out in theaters now. I hope the crocodile wins.

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